First edition in English of this informal narrative of the Freycinet voyage, the great French expedition to Australia and the Pacific commanded by Louis de Freycinet from 1817-1820. Arago's book marked the first appearance in English of any account of the expedition.

First edition in English of this informal narrative of the Freycinet voyage, the great French expedition to Australia and the Pacific commanded by Louis de Freycinet from 1817-1820. Arago's book marked the first appearance in English of any account of the expedition.

Jacques Arago was the official artist on the voyage, and the lithograph plates here are all after his own drawings. His style is confident, stylised and highly skilled, and he is particularly adept at capturing the vigour and personality of his native subjects. His narrative is highly readable, not least because he entirely avoids the conventional forms of the voyage narrative, ignoring the 'eternal repetition of winds, currents, longitude and lattitude'. Full of wry humour, it takes the form of a series of letters to a friend. Long portions relate to Australia, with descriptions of Sydney, the Blue Mountains, and of meetings with Governor Macquarie and John Oxley. There is also a long account (almost 100 pages) of their stay in Hawaii at a crucial period in the history of the islands. The plates include an Aboriginal warrior of New South Wales, a ritualised execution in Hawaii, and idealised nymphs from the islands of the south Pacific.